1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to service provision methods, relay devices, and service provision apparatuses, and more particularly to a service provision method providing a service to a terminal device via the Internet from a service provision apparatus upon request from the terminal device, and a relay device and a service provision apparatus employed in providing a service to a terminal device in accordance with such a service provision method.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet is a network connecting a multitude of networks with one another by using TCP/IP, and has developed rapidly due to commercial IP connection services and functional improvement of browsers. Further, constant connection to the Internet, which used to be performed only by limited users such as corporate users, is enjoyed by more and more individual users through Internet service providers (ISP).
Since each user has her/his own system constantly connected to the Internet by this constant connection, each user may be able to set up her/his own Web site by using her/his own system. In order to set up services such as Web sites on the Internet, systems for providing the services are required to obtain global IP addresses that are determined uniquely on the Internet. Having no global IP address is just like having no fixed address. Therefore, the services may not be reached on the Internet without the global IP addresses.
However, not all the systems aiming at providing services can obtain the global IP addresses. Therefore, it is only a limited number of systems that can set up services on the Internet.